The year 2021 has been an annus horribilis for Stonewall. For much of the last decade, the charity could do no wrong in the eyes of those who mattered. Stonewall’s influence cut straight into the heart of government. As Nikki da Costa, Boris Johnson’s former director of legislative affairs, pointed out:
‘There is no other organisation — no business, or charity, no matter how big — that can pick up the phone to a special adviser sitting outside Boris Johnson’s office and get that person to speak directly to the Prime Minister. But that is the kind of access that Stonewall has’
Through its Diversity Champions Programme, Stonewall advised businesses, police, NHS Trusts and universities. Yet during the last twelve months, the wheels fell off the wagon: high-profile organisations sought to distance themselves from Stonewall; even the BBC opted to cut ties with the charity’s workplace equality scheme.
This reckoning was overdue: for too long, Stonewall has been on something of a trans-crusade.
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